Chapter VI: Section 2: The congress shall have power to enforce this article (or (2)

What these institutions have done for the intelligent American citizen they are now beginning to do for the Freedman, as he is brought under their uplifting influence. They suggest both to him and his friends, the greatest or most important needs of the Freedmen.

[1] See Cottage Bible on Revelation XVII 6.

VIII

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

IT EMPHASIZES THE BIBLE AS FUNDAMENTAL IN EDUCATION.--A ZEALOUS MISSIONARY ORGANIZATION.--AS CATHOLIC IN SPIRIT AS THE GOSPEL.

"Walk about Zion, tell the towers thereof; mark ye well her
bulwarks, that ye may tell it to the generation following."--David.

The Presbyterian Church has always stood for Religion and Education--Religion as the basis of true education, and Education as the promoter of positive practical religion.

CHRISTIAN LEADERS.

The Presbyterian Church wishes to see the young people of every generation provided with the best means for their intellectual and spiritual progress. It wishes to see them prepared, not merely for active and successful participation in the onward work of the world, but also in full and hearty sympathy with the great work of Christ and his people, for the spiritual salvation of the nations. It knows there is no good reason, why a stirring leader of men should not be a Christian; nor why a Christian should not be eminently successful, in taking his place among men as a forceful factor in the life of the world.

The Presbyterian Church believes in the system of state schools from the primary, public and high schools, to the University. These schools provide for general education. Millions of children would never be in school, were it not for these state provisions and for compulsory public education. These schools are however not all perfect, since they do not provide for moral and religious training, the great underlying principles of reverence and righteousness, that must enter into every life in order to fit it for the performance of Christian and patriotic duty.

The Presbyterian church takes a patriotic interest in our whole public school system, and believes that all the children should be trained in those that are under public direction, so that all the children and youth of the nation shall be a united, intelligent and patriotic body, fitted for good citizenship.

At the same time it believes in special church institutions of higher learning, that shall be adapted to train our young people for intelligent leadership in the church, and enable them to become doubly useful in the home, social circle and in public life. Our Christian academies and colleges are valuable institutions. These furnish to the church and the world the greatest number of ministers, missionaries, college presidents and Christian statesmen. Parents everywhere, find these Christian institutions furnish the best advantages, and that they are the safest and most economical. No institutions furnish higher or more profitable culture. They combine all that is best in real culture and education of the intelligent faculties, with a true religious conception of life; so that all who yield to their best influences go forth from them pure-hearted, stronger and better prepared to engage in life's duties successfully; for they take with them the personal assurance of the gracious presence and abiding blessing of our Father in Heaven.

In a christian educational institution, the spirit of the instructor is one that regards the student, as of more value than the subject taught. Its aim including the christian college, is not research, the work of a university, but to make men. The ordinary branches that are taught are regarded as instrumentalities, for making a well trained man of the student.

The key to success in the battle of life, is found in the struggle, which insures control of one's self. This is the secret of a good education. In an important sense, all education must be self-education. Professor Huxley gave good emphasis to this thought when he wrote: "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education, is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson he learns thoroughly." An eminent educator used to say to his class: "He, who will become a scholar, must learn to command his faculties."

The Presbyterian church honors God and exalts him to the throne of absolute supremacy over all his creatures. It honors Him by using the instrumentalities he has appointed. It receives the Bible, as the very word of God, and adopts it as the only rule of faith and practice.

The Presbyterian church from the beginning has been a zealous missionary organization. At the meeting of the First General Assembly arrangements were made to send the gospel to "the regions beyond,"--the frontiers and the various tribes of American Indians. The agencies, then organized as committees, have become the great Boards of Home and Foreign Missions, that now receive and distribute, each, more than a million dollars annually.

A ZEALOUS MISSIONARY ORGANIZATION.

It is gratifying to know that the colored people, although emotional and demonstrative, have nevertheless an intelligent appreciation of the views and methods of the Presbyterian church.

A prominent minister of a southern church is quoted as having said: "The Presbyterian church can do for the colored people of the south what no other church can do."

FABLE OF PERSIAN TENT.

There is a Persian fable that tells of a young prince who brought to his father a nutshell, which, when opened with a spring, contained a little tent of such ingenious construction, that when spread in the nursery the children could play under its folds; when opened in the council chamber the King and his counsellors could sit beneath its canopy; when placed in the court yard the family and all the servants could gather under its shade; when pitched upon the plain, where the soldiers were encamped, the entire army could gather within its enclosure. It possessed the qualities of boundless adaptability and expansiveness.

This little tent is a good symbol of our Presbyterian system. It is all contained within the nutshell of the Gospel. Open it in the nursery, and beneath its folds parents and children sit with delight; spread it in the court yard, and beneath its shadow the whole household assembles for morning and evening worship; open it in the village and it becomes a church, under whose canopy the whole town may worship. Open it upon the plain, and a great sacramental army gathers under it. Send it to the heathen world, and it becomes a great pavilion, that fills and covers the earth.

The Presbyterian church is as Catholic as the Gospel in its spirit of brotherly love, and readiness to co-operate with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. It recognizes the ordination of the Episcopalian and the baptism of the Baptist. It joins cordially with those who would place the crown upon the brow of Jesus by singing only the Psalms of David, and responds with an approving echo to the hearty "Amen" of the Methodists. It is capable of an expansion, that will include all shades of our common humanity, and is working valiantly to usher in the day, when the prayer of our Lord Jesus shall be fulfilled: "That they may be one; as Thou, Father art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me."

"The Presbyterian church stands," says Rev. W. H. Roberts, D. D.,
"as it has stood during its entire history, for the unconditional
sovereignty of God, for the Bible as the only infallible rule of
faith and life, for simplicity of worship, representative
government, a high standard of christian living, liberty of
conscience, popular education, missionary activity and true
Christian Catholicity."

President Benjamin Harrison said of it: "The Presbyterian church has
been steadfast for liberty, and it has kept steadfast for education.
It has stood as stiff as a steel beam for the faith delivered to our
fathers, and it still stands with steadfastness for that essential
doctrine--the inspired Word. It is not an illiberal church. There is
no body of Christians in the world, that opens its arms wider to all
who love the Master. Though it has made no boast or shout, it has
yet been an aggressive missionary church from the beginning."

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY.

Lincoln University in Chester county, Pennsylvania, was established in 1854 under the leadership of Rev. John M. Dickey, D. D., pastor of the Presbyterian church of Oxford, for the classical and theological education of negroes. The extent and thoroughness of the courses of instruction at this institution have been amply justified by the success of its graduates; many in the ministry, and others, in founding similar institutions of a high grade in the south, as at Columbia, S. C., Salisbury, N. C., Holly Springs, Miss., and a number of other places. Its aim is to furnish trained professional leaders, and it is accomplishing this object in splendid form. Established before the Freedmen's Board, it has continued to be maintained without its aid.

IX

THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF MISSIONS FOR FREEDMEN.

ORGANIZED IN 1865.--WOMEN ENLISTED IN 1884.--BOARDING SCHOOLS.--TRAINS CHRISTIAN LEADERS.--WORTHY OF GENEROUS SUPPORT AND ENDOWMENT.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath appointed me to
preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the
broken-hearted and preach deliverance to the captives."--Luke.

The emancipation of 4,000,000 slaves, at the close of the Civil War, was the sudden opening of a new and a vast field of opportunity and duty, before the Christian churches of this land.

The education and moral elevation of the Freedmen became, in both church and state, a very serious and vital question. Ever since the foundation of the government, the church, through the voluntary establishment of academies and colleges, has been co-operating with the civil government, in the effort to develop in all parts of our land an intelligent christian citizenship.

The Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen was organized as a committee in 1865, the last year of the Civil War. In 1882 this committee was made and incorporated as a Board. Its work then assumed a more permanent form and the contributions to its work began to be greatly increased. The contributions received that year were $68,268.08. In 1913 the amount received to be applied to this work was $323,899.29. The amount of property held by it and used for educational and church purposes is $1,831,610.09. The office of the board is at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

WOMEN ENLISTED IN 1884

In 1884 the interest of the women of the Presbyterian church was enlisted in behalf of the women and girls among the Freedmen. The progress of the work of the Women's Missionary societies, in establishing and maintaining educational institutions, is worthy of special mention.

During their first year they contributed $3,010; the second, $7,966; the third, $17,075; and in 1913, $85,236.09.

In raising this last amount 675 Sunday schools and 1082 Young People's societies co-operated with 3591 Women's societies.

To the women, almost entirely, is due the establishment and maintenance of most of the boarding schools now supported by the board. The names of some of the most consecrated workers and liberal contributors have been commemorated in the names of most of these institutions. That this fact may be noted and as a matter of general information, the following list of twenty-four of them is given.

LIST OF BOARDING SCHOOLS

I. FOR MALES ONLY

Biddle University, Charlotte, North Carolina. Harbison Agricultural College, Irmo, South Carolina.

II. SEMINARIES FOR GIRLS ONLY

Scotia, Concord N. C. Mary Allen, Crockett, Texas. Ingleside, Burkeville, Va. Mary Holmes, West Point, Miss. Barber Memorial, Anniston, Ala.

III. CO-EDUCATIONAL

Allendale Academy, Allendale, S. C. Albion Academy, Franklinton, N. C. Alice Lee Elliott Memorial, Valliant, Okla. Arkadelphia Academy, Arkadelphia, Ark. Boggs Academy, Keyesville, Ga. Brainard Institute, Chester, S. C. Emerson Industrial Institute, Blackville, S. C. Fee Memorial Institute, Nelson, Ky. Gillespie Normal, Cordele, Ga. Haines Industrial, Augusta, Ga. Kendall Institute, Sumpter, S. C. Mary Potter Memorial, Oxford, N. C. Monticello Academy, Monticello, Ark. Cotton Plant Academy, Cotton Plant, Ark. Coulter Memorial Academy, Cheraw, N. C. Redstone Academy, Lumberton, N. C. Swift Memorial College, Rogersville, Tenn.

In addition to those in these boarding schools, 112 teachers are employed in the maintenance of this same number of day schools.

In his last annual report, April 1, 1913, Rev. E. P. Cowan, D. D., secretary of the Board submitted the following interesting summary of its work.

"The Freedmen's Board has ever kept in mind the one great fact that
its work is, first, last and all the time, missionary work. We have
aimed from the very beginning to follow a course that would commend
itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. We have always
sought the counsel and advice of good men on the field, at times
nearer our work than ourselves, and better able to judge of its
condition. We have endeavored to exert such an influence over the
people among whom we have labored, so that no one could object to it
except he were a heathen or an infidel. As a consequence, all the
opposition we have met with in all these years has been as nothing,
compared with the sympathy and encouragement we have received from
good men.

"We have this year issued our forty-eighth annual report. This
annual report shows that we have now in connection with our church,
four colored Synods, composed of sixteen colored Presbyteries, in
which there are four hundred and four church organizations, with
twenty-six thousand, one hundred and thirty-two communicants, two
hundred and eighty-nine ordained ministers of the Gospel, and
thirteen hundred and seventeen ruling elders.

"Within these Presbyteries, there are one hundred and thirty-six
schools, and in these schools there are 16,427 pupils, taught by 448
teachers, all of whom are professing Christians, and by a rule of
the Board, members of the Presbyterian church.

"In all these schools, the Word of God and the Shorter Catechism are
regularly and daily taught. On the mind and heart of every living
soul that passes in and out of our schools, there is impressed the
fundamental and far-reaching truth, that the chief end of man is to
glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, and that the Word of God,
which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,
is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.

"These churches and schools, and ministers and teachers--588 workers
in all--are housed in 470 buildings, of which 300 are church
buildings, 70 are manses, and 100 are school buildings. The value of
these buildings is estimated at $1,561,000. The cry comes up to us
without ceasing for either more room, or better accommodations.
Should we answer these cries promptly, and without regard to the
question as to where the money is to come from, we should be
hopelessly overwhelmed with debt within one year."

TRAINS CHRISTIAN LEADERS

The Freedmen are naturally religious and hitherto their churches have been their principal social centers. Under uneducated leadership, the only kind possible at first, their church life was characterized by a loose moral standard, poor business methods and boisterous worship. In many places it still lacks a realization of the real needs of the race.

"The true standard bearers of better things have been the relatively
few ministers and churches that have been noted for their educated
ministry, restraint in worship, rigid morals and careful
supervision."

The wisdom of the policy of training capable christian leaders, was emphasized at the last General Assembly at Atlanta, by Rev. H. A. Johnson, D. D., in the following pertinent paragraph:

"The vital need of the negro people is a trained christian
leadership. Their problem can never be solved by elementary
education for the masses, or industrial training for those who enter
the trades and till the farm. They must have thoroughly trained
christian teachers and ministers of the Gospel and should also have
the other professions represented among their leaders. The men, who
are conspicuous leaders among the negroes in industrial training are
publicly saying that they expect such organizations as the
Presbyterian church to furnish the ministers and teachers for their
people, while they furnish the farmers, the carpenters and other
tradesmen. The task of furnishing this trained leadership is being
bravely attempted by our Board within the limitations of their
available resources. Every intelligent student of the problem must
realize how supremely important is this phase of the work."

WORTHY OF GENEROUS SUPPORT AND ENDOWMENT

The Board of Missions for Freedmen of the Presbyterian church merits the intelligent sympathy and cordial co-operation not only of our whole church but of all the friends who favor christian education among the dependent colored people in the south part of our land.

It educates ministers and teachers, and supports them in their work. It builds academies, seminaries and colleges, and aids in the erection of churches and manses. Its 24 boarding schools, having normal and industrial departments, are distributed so that there is one or more in every southern state.

It now owns and controls school, church and manse properties that represent a value of one and a half million dollars.

Its permanent investments, that bring an annual income for the promotion of its work however, are yet only $200,202.50. In these days of big business, the evidence of unusual prosperity, it ought to have an endowment of one million dollars.

Education is the most costly of all philanthropic enterprises. The following reason recently expressed for a large endowment of the College Board applies with equal force to the Freedmen's Board.

"A million dollar corporation is now considerably more than twice as
efficient, as an instrument to accomplish results than one of a half
million. In this day of large things the men who are interested in
education, prefer to employ as their agent, an organization whose
resources are large enough to place its permanent and financial
stability beyond question. A bank with a million dollars of capital
has considerable advantage over one having only a quarter of a
million. The law, 'To him that hath shall be given,' still prevails
among the children of men."

The members of the Freedmen's Board have been selected, because of their manifest interest in the educational and spiritual welfare of the colored people; and they are conscientiously striving, to the best of their ability, to promote the interests of the Freedmen, in behalf of the great body of generous hearted christian people whom they represent.

The work of the Freedmen's Board has hitherto by its charter been limited to the Freedmen in southern states. At the next General Assembly, an effort will be made to extend its work, so as to include the negroes in the northern states.

X

SPECIAL BENEFACTORS.

GEORGE PEABODY.--JOHN F. SLATER.--DANIEL HAND.--EMILINE CUSHING.--ANNA T. JEANES.--CAROLINE PHELPS STOKES.--JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER.--NEGRO PHILANTHROPISTS.

"He loveth our nation and hath built us a synagogue."

The educational needs of the Freedman have called forth several large benefactions from individual contributors. George Peabody of Danvers, Massachusetts, in 1867 and 1869, established a fund of $3,500,000 for the promotion of general education in the South. One half of this amount happened to prove unavailable. A large part of the remainder was used in the establishment and endowment of the Peabody teachers college for whites at Nashville, Tennessee, leaving only a small part of it for use among the Freedmen.

In 1882, John F. Slater of Norwich, Connecticut, created a trust fund of $1,000,000, for the purpose of uplifting the emancipated population of the southern states and their posterity. The income of this fund, now increased to $1,500,000, is used to promote normal and industrial education.

In 1888 Daniel Hand of Guilford, Connecticut, gave the American Missionary Association of the Congregational church $1,000,000, and a residuary estate of $500,000 to aid in the education of the Negro.

In 1895 Miss Emiline Cushing of Boston left $23,000 for the same object.

In 1907 Miss Anna T. Jeanes of Philadelphia, Pa., left an endowment fund of $1,000,000 to aid in maintaining elementary schools among the Freedmen. Booker T. Washington was named as one of two trustees of this fund. Its distribution contemplates a three fold plan. First, something additional is to be secured from the school authorities. Second, the co-operative efforts of the people are essential. Third, the effectiveness of the school is improved and its neighborhood influence widened by the introduction of industrial features. In 1911, the income from this fund was so widely distributed as to reach the work in as many as 111 counties in 12 different states; and summer schools were aided in six of them.

In 1909 Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes created a fund of $300,000 for the erection of tenement houses in New York City; and the education of negroes and Indians, through industrial schools.

From 1902 to 1909, John D. Rockefeller gave $53,000,000 to establish a fund for the promotion of general education in the United States. The schools of the Freedmen have received from this fund $532,015.

NEGRO PHILANTHROPISTS

The Freedmen have fallen heir to the estates of some free negroes, that became wealthy. It is interesting to note the following ones.

Tommy Lafon of New Orleans, a dealer in dry goods and real estate, in 1893, left for charitable purposes among his people, an estate appraised at $413,000.

Mary E. Shaw of New York City, left Tuskeegee Colored Institute $38,000.

Col. John McKee of Philadelphia, at his death in 1902, left about $1,000,000 worth of property for education, including a provision for the establishment of a college to bear his name.

Anna Marie Fisher, of Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1911, having an estate of $65,000 left $26,000 for educational institutions.

The successful achievement of these four free Negroes and their generous regard for the welfare of their kin-folks, suggest the possibilities of which they are capable, as financiers and philanthropists, when circumstances are favorable.